[535] Virginia Calendar of State Papers, I, 588; II, 74.
[536] Almon’s Remembrancer, 1781, II, 62-63, Arnold to Clinton, Petersburg, May 12, 1781.
[537] Hening, Statutes of Virginia, X, 450; Virginia Navy Papers, I, and II.
[538] Hening, Statutes of Virginia, XI, 42-44. In March, 1783, the three commissioners were Paul Loyall, Thomas Brown, and Thomas Newton, jr.—Virginia Calendar of State Papers, III, 456.
[539] Virginia Navy Papers, II.
[540] Journals of Continental Congress, October 3, 1783.
CHAPTER XV
THE NAVY OF SOUTH CAROLINA [541]
South Carolina employed her first armed vessels in obtaining a supply of gunpowder, the need of which article was so keenly felt throughout the colonies during the first years of the Revolution. In July, 1775, the South Carolina Council of Safety sent Captains John Barnwell and John Joyner of Beaufort with forty men in two large and well-armed barges to assist the Georgians in taking an English supply-ship, which was daily expected at Savannah. The enterprise was wholly successful. The ship with its cargo of sixteen thousand pounds of gunpowder was captured by the combined forces of the two colonies. South Carolina sent four thousand pounds of her share of the powder to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia.[542]
In the same month of July the Council of Safety planned to seize certain gunpowder stored at Nassau, New Providence, and for this purpose the “Commerce,” a sloop belonging to citizens of New York, was temporarily taken into the service of the state. It will be recalled that Commodore Esek Hopkins in the initial essay of the Continental fleet in February and March, 1776, attempted to capture this gunpowder. Before the “Commerce” was ready to set sail, word came that the brigantine “Betsey” from London with a cargo of ammunition was soon to arrive at St. Augustine. Captain Clement Lemprière, the commander of the “Commerce,” was therefore ordered to cruise off St. Augustine in watch for the expected vessel. On August 8 he captured the “Betsey” with her load of gunpowder amounting to almost twelve thousand pounds.[543]
Neither of these two episodes led to a permanent naval armament. This, as was to be expected, was brought about by the necessity of protecting Charles Town, the capital and chief port of the Province. The critical month in South Carolina in 1775 was September. During this month two of His Majesty’s vessels, the “Tamar,” 16, and “Cherokee,” 6, lay in Charles Town harbor. It was in September that Lord William Campbell, the Royal Governor of the Province, fled from Charles Town on board the “Tamar.” In September the South Carolina Council of Safety began to seize the forts commanding the channel leading to Charles Town from the sea. The executive of the Revolutionary government at this time consisted of the Council of Safety of thirteen members. About the first of October the Council of Safety obtained the schooner “Defence” and placed it under the command of Captain Simon Tufts, a native of Massachusetts, but now a resident of Charles Town. The Council of Safety fixed the pay of officers and men on board the schooner.